Falling in Love With Your Best Friend 101
by Nygmatech
Summary: Clark and Lex aren't together... really. Slash.


**A/N: This is grossly unedited-read at your own risk. My first shot at a humor fic, from someone who writes only angst, so beware of that too.**

falling in love with your best friend 101

When Clark Kent was fifteen, Pete caught him kissing Lex Luthor in the barn.

It was a surreal, awkward experience for everyone involved, least of which because Clark may or may not have accidentally inhaled some red kryptonite dust earlier that day by accident out in the corn fields. It had worn off by the time Pete had stopped freaking out and Lex had gotten over his shock. Clark explained the whole thing away by saying that the football team must have put something in his lunch when he wasn't looking as a practical joke, and after a brief discussion, that was that and they agreed not to speak of it again.

Somehow, though, Clark suspected that Pete didn't entirely believe him, if the fact that Pete teased him even more relentlessly about Lex now than he had Lana before was any indication.

When Clark was fifteen and a half, he was sitting in the Talon with Lex and Chloe, and somehow in his clumsiness his elbow had collided with Lex's coffee cup, sending it tumbling into the billionaire's lap.

"Shit!" Lex swore, and Clark turned _scarlet_. He hastily grabbed a handful of napkins and started dabbing at the seam of Lex's pants, apologizing profusely as he did so.

Lex made a strange noise and pushed Clark's hands away, looking strained. He had managed to fold his suit jacket over his arm, holding it in front of him in a way that when he stood up to make a dash for the restroom, it looked somewhat casual while also covering the coffee stain on his pants.

Chloe was looking at Clark intently with an odd smirk on her face when he stuttered something about being sorry and wanting to help, running after Lex into the restroom.

For some reason Clark was still confused about, Chloe was still making references to "coffee stains" as if they were an innuendo for something.

Clark was sixteen now, and Lex had climbed in through his bedroom window at two thirty in the morning.

Now, it wasn't unusual for Lex to inconspicuously stop by the Kent farm in the middle of the night after something or other had happened, but usually he'd leave if Clark weren't in the loft, which he usually was, but… tonight had been especially cold, and Clark was kind of mentally exhausted from a history test at school earlier, so he'd gone straight up to his bedroom and collapsed.

"Lex?" Clark asked, drowsily, blinking uncomprehendingly up at the figure in the darkness, who was now closing the window carefully.

"Shh," Lex breathed back, sharply, and if it weren't for Clark's superhearing he might have had trouble distinguishing Lex's voice. "The last thing I need right now is for your parents to wake up and find _me_ sneaking into their son's bedroom at the middle of the night."

The bed dipped under Lex's weight as he sat down, and if Clark focused hard enough he could see Lex taking off his shoes, jacket draped over the chair at Clark's desk.

Clark stopped watching when Lex started unbuttoning his shirt, an unexpected flush crawling over his cheeks, and he rolled over.

He wanted to ask Lex why he was here, but the words wouldn't come out right. Probably because _Lex Luthor_ was undressing and crawling into Clark's bed with him.

Lex just let off a breathy chuckle, and when he laid down the bed was small enough that Clark could feel Lex's skin, a millimeter away from touching _everywhere._

"Dad has company," he said softly, lips brushing the shell of Clark's ear when he spoke, and _oh god_, he must have been doing that on purpose. "I need a place to stay for a few hours, you don't mind, do you?"

Clark made some sort of noise that Lex took as affirmation, but actually was a squeak because Lex had chosen that moment to brush against Clark's leg with his foot.

Clark decided to blame this whole thing on the fact that Lex was shirtless. Clark could never make good choices when Lex was shirtless.

* * *

Clark was still sixteen, and this time he woke up in the same bed as Lex Luthor. Woke up in his _bedroom_ in the same bed as Lex Luthor. Woke up _late_, in his bedroom, in the same bed as Lex Luthor. Which meant that—

"_Lex,_" Clark hissed, shaking the older man awake. "Lex, I have to get you out of here! My _parents_ are awake!"

Lex woke up far more slowly than Clark would have liked, giving Clark a blindingly bright smile before he stood up, and Clark noted, mouth going dry, that Lex wasn't wearing pajamas. Or underwear.

So make that a _naked_ Lex Luthor in his bedroom.

"Don't worry," Lex said, indifferently, "I can just climb out the window again-"

"No!" Clark protested, hastily, and stood up himself, though he made a point not to look at Lex, face scarlet, instead busying himself with rooting around in his dresser. "My dad's probably out back doing the farmwork, okay? We have to sneak out the front."

When Clark turned around, Lex was facing him, mouth slightly open. Clark shoved a small pile of clothes in his hands.

"Your clothes'll take too long to put on, just throw on those and I'll stop by the mansion later," Clark instructed, panic evident in his voice, and Lex wasted no time in pulling on the offered pair of boxers and pajama pants. They hung really low on his hips, but—wow, Clark really shouldn't be thinking about that right now, he could ponder his sexuality later, after he'd gotten Lex out of the range of his dad's shotgun.

"Where did you park your car?" Clark asked, hurriedly, pulling on his socks just as Lex had shrugged on Clark's flannel shirt, still bare-chested.

"Up the road, just around the bend, I walked the rest of the way-"

"Good," Clark said, and grabbed Lex's hand, pulling him towards the door. "C'mon, you have to go."

"Clark-!"

"Shh!"

Clark had just pulled Lex down the last of the stairs and into the kitchen when his dad's voice sounded, good-naturedly:

"Clark, nice of you to finally get up."

Then, Jonathan turned around.

The room froze. Clark could feel the heat radiating off of his own face, but Lex had gone even paler than usual, and distantly, Clark registered that he was still holding Lex's hand.

Jonathan looked like he wasn't sure whether to throw up or start shouting, and Martha, who had been in the middle of reheating breakfast, looked more taken aback than anything else.

It was she who hastily broke the silence, presumably (and luckily, as far as Clark was concerned) so Jonathan wouldn't have to, clearing her throat and gesturing to the dining table.

"Why… why don't you boys sit down?"

Lex immediately complied, dragging Clark around the table. As he sat down, though, Clark noticed that Lex made a show of wincing and looking slightly pained as he settled onto the very edge of the chair, and laid their joined hands on the tabletop.

"Are you okay?" Clark shot back without thinking, brow furrowing in concern.

"I'm fine," Lex said softly, turning to smile brilliantly at Clark and squeeze his hand, but his tone _definitely_ had a teasing edge. "Just a little sore sitting down, but that's perfectly normal after."

Martha blushed spectacularly and Jonathan choked on his coffee. Clark didn't quite get it at first, but—_oh. _Oh, _god._ Lex was a genius. An evil, evil genius. Because… because Clark's parents would think that he had s… had s-_sex_ with _Lex_ even if Clark told the truth, and would probably think that Lex had taken advantage of Clark, but if Lex was the one who had um, been on the bottom (and even thinking about stuff like this made Clark embarrassed and flushed), then Clark couldn't have been taken advantage of, right?

"Mr. and Mrs. Kent, I-"

"I didn't want to die a virgin!" Clark blurted out, because it sounded like a realistic argument in his head. He was grasping for straws here, trying to play along and _think, Kent. Why would you have sex with Lex?_

"I'm sixteen," Clark continued, nervously. "I'm… I'm of the age of consent, right? And Dad, you—you gave me the um, the talk a while ago and you said it should be with someone I trust and…"

"Clark came to me with his concerns," Lex broke in promptly, nodding to affirm Clark's words, and his fingers stroked lazily over the back of Clark's hand, which sent shivers up his spine. "He needed to be with someone he didn't need to worry about hurting. I know Clark is fast, and strong, but I was affected by the meteor showers, too; I heal at an unnatural rate. With me, Clark didn't need to worry about his strength."

It came as no great surprise to Clark that Lex knew his secret, or at least… part of it. It would have been really, really hard to miss with some of the stuff going on in Smallville lately, and how often he'd had to _rescue_ Lex. What was more interesting was that Lex was a… well, a meteor freak. At least he didn't seem as crazy as the others.

The thing is, Clark's parents didn't know that Clark knew that Lex knew. And as Clark watched his father's face fill with fear and anger, he knew that this was going to be very, very bad.

"Um, why don't Lex and I just-"

"Lex, honey," his mother broke in quickly, a nervous sidelong glance at Jonathan, "why don't you get dressed and go home? I'll let Clark go over to the mansion for a few hours before dinner."

Lex took one look at Jonathan Kent, and fled, not needing to be told twice. As soon as he got out the door, the kitchen erupted with noise, both of Clark's parents shouting at the top of their lungs, only… at each other.

Clark didn't want to listen, but while sitting at the kitchen table completely stunned, he couldn't help but to pick out pieces of the argument. Things about Lionel Luthor and the meteor shower and secrets and Clark didn't want to _hear_ this.

It was hard to remember, now, that it was all pretend. That Clark hadn't actually gone to Lex to trust him with his first time, that they hadn't done… _that_, and Lex's careful defense of Clark was only constructed to get them out of a sticky situation, that it wasn't real.

Only it felt real. Like Lex had actually meant everything, and Clark suddenly realized that _he_ had too.

The chair hit the floor with a loud crash that surprised Clark's parents into silence, as he stood up abruptly and shouted, "I'm tired of you playing Capulets and Montagues with the Luthors, dad! Lex is my best friend and I trust him and it's my choice to make!"

The last thing Clark heard before he slammed his bedroom door shut was his mother's exasperated voice from below:

"For God's sake, Jonathan! They're in love!"

And Clark thought:

_Oh_.

Lex's clothes were gone, as well as the ones he'd borrowed from Clark earlier, but the suit jacket was still draped over his desk chair. Clark pressed his face into it and fell onto his bed, inhaling the slightly spicy, exotic scent of Lex's cologne.

That night, Clark's dreams were heavy with images of smooth pale skin, a hairless body, a light, masculine drawl that pronounced his name the way Lana used to, in the dreams.

Clark woke up half hard and with Lex's name on his lips.

* * *

Clark was almost seventeen, and his life was over.

"My parents think I had sex with Lex," he told Chloe one day at the Torch after school when he simply couldn't bear it anymore, but she just smirked and raised her eyebrows at him. Clark thought he should have been more disturbed by her lack of surprise, but he wasn't thinking about that right now.

"And did you?"

"No," Clark whispered, barely audible and absolutely terrified, "but I think I want to."

* * *

Lex Luthor was twenty two years old, and he'd never quite realized how far that was from sixteen, until Clark Kent had burst into his office red in the face and looking incredibly ashamed of himself.

"I um," Clark stammered, before Lex could do much more than look up in surprise. "I told Chloe that my parents… that they thought we…"

And… alright, that hadn't been what Lex had been expecting, but Clark seemed incredibly worried and that was enough to pique Lex's interest. "Clark, it's alright. Did you tell her we didn't actually have s-"

"It's not that!" Clark interrupted hurriedly, turning even more red as if he couldn't stand Lex even saying the words. "It's um, just—there are going to be rumors, and I thought I should… um, let you know."

"They don't have to be," Lex said, conversationally, and at Clark's look of confusion he elaborated, "rumors. They don't have to be rumors."

Clark squeaked, but he swallowed heavily and Lex couldn't miss how Clark's eyes had traveled to his mouth.

He stood up, deliberately licking his lips as he moved around the desk. "Don't worry, Clark. I know about that secret too."


End file.
